Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide
That's a staggering statement meaning that every computer accessing Google is now being personalized, signed in or not, so any desktop, laptop or kiosk will start tracking everything everyone does and you won't be able to access the same search results from any two machines.
The possible impact to all is staggering.
But the predominant concern in the thread so far is privacy - which hasn't really been changed all that much from where we were before the announcement. The privacy concern was always there for many people, but this announcement has created a kind of tipping point.
The privacy issues are immense and go far beyond Google into the arena of all large organizations, businesses and governments. That's not really the focus of this forum or WebmasterWorld - but there are plenty of places online to get involved in privacy matters if you are so inclined.
But zeroing in on what it means for search results and SEO, what will it mean? What does it mean right now, since it is already happening? Brett said above that for most sites it will be a push, and from what I'm seeing that's about the way it is running so far.
personalize search results for logged-out users
The issue of logged-in vs logged-out in terms of privacy is moot, Google is watching both.
Does Google record the changes made to "logged-out" people? Yes, they have to in order to "undo" those changes at the person's request. Can I "undo" someone elses changes? No, it's based on my computer, on my conveniently named "anonymous" cookie.
If this was an opt-in feature I wouldn't mind one bit, unfortunately it's not?
[edited by: tedster at 1:28 am (utc) on Dec. 8, 2009]
So far, I'm not seeing too much of a difference in traffic--yeah, some odd results here and there but nothing over the top.
The issue of logged-in vs logged-out in terms of privacy is moot, Google is watching both.
Being easily confused in my old age, I'm a little unclear on this.
I've only a few times in years searched while logged in, and have never done so intentionally.
Now days I search with cookies deleted and not allowed. But that hasn't always been the case.
So, how far back might G look to establish my history?
And if I search without cookies, what do they hang a history on, my ip?
So, who remembers the mantra of recent years- forget your ranking, IT'S TRAFFIC AND CONVERSION THAT COUNTS.
What's changed? Ok, my search history is now being used, along with "objective" criteria such as location, time of day, etc. Who cares?
I mean, I care, insomuch as the data is collected in the first place. I've being saying that for years- its certainly been my position since I joined these boards. But from an SEO POV, I couldn't care less.
I have referal data. I have traffic stats. I have conversion rates. I have a suite of fancy tools that show me nice charts of how these and other factors interact. Most of you do too- use them.
I'm a Gorg realist. I'm scared by their reach, worried about their intentions, and optimistic that "the public" will soon get the message. Frankly, this move is positive to me. It will not affect my approach to data-led SEO*, and may catalyse public perception.
But a word of advice: look at your meta descriptions. They're dynamite real estate from now on.
*Of course, I am "in house". Those of you with clients have a PR campaign to get on with. It's annoying, I understand, but there is a real opportunity to deliminate yourselves from the snake-oil variety. Shout it from the roof tops "RANKING MEANS NOTHING ANY MORE- WATCH THE EFFING TRAFFIC"
Wondering?
Elaboration please.
I doubt we'll see anything meaningful in webstats for at least two months, probably longer.
It's close to impossible to see any change yet. One click from one person to one website never vaults that to the top of the results from logged-in search. The changes will be more subtle, and take quite some time to cumulatively have an effect.
An example of the "noise" is this thread - all sorts of responses, most irrelevant - the key issues ignored and the main people to listen to (Brett, Tedster) are reduced to "noise" and just mixed in with all the other posts.
There are so many real issues here that it is so sad that we have the "big brother is watching you" crap - that is not the issue, it always has been (as said by many knowledgeable people).
The point is now we have an "implementation" of this - and that there are so many things wrong with it that it is so difficult to get to first base to discuss it.
The key issue is to us on a webmaster forum - this update is literally saying "stuff you lot, even though you made us".
That is the sickening bit.
So either we stop being the victims or do something about it - something like the "bingathon" in the other featured homepage discussion.
I can convince almost 40 close people or so to switch to Bing - and they wouldn't know the difference. I can also convince them to tell all their friends to do so. All are non-webmasters.
Why don't we all do this - and make Google humble again?
Yea, let's stick to monetizing -- that is what really matters.
...........................
Maybe sometimes you have to think a bit bigger and make some sort of statement.
Google has been creating bigger and bigger market shares that impact all businesses online - and that has been allowed to happen, with the statements "don't put all your eggs into one basket" - but isn't that statement in itself crazy now, of course it will be in one basket if it is online - Google have a monopoly, which has been allowed to happen.
Google have been compared to Microsoft which is totally not the same thing - how easy is it technically to change the search engine you use versus the operating system you use.
The point is Google was created by webmasters - microsoft was not.
The key point is that we (as webmasters) can actually create change, and get Google communicating again, and make it better for all of us if we have the balls to do something simple about it.
Why do nothing when you can actually do something?
Why would Google want anyone do SEO? My novice understanding was that you do not create a site for Google, but you better have a "real" reason for running your site (being that personal or corporate), and you focus onto whatever your site is about, for the reason of giving a good information and/or product.
Then, Google, in silent collaboration with its users (that the users are not even aware of), will decide which site will be thrown onto which position.
So many people were (and are) making sites for Google, and my understanding is that G doesn't want that, but quality which makes their users happy so they keep G as a default search engine, and because of that popularity G runs various types of ads across the WEB - of which G makes money.
So... so long Mr. or Ms. SEO... time to pack the books.
And what will make it funny in some (or many) cases is that good sites will continue to rank well, and respective web masters, SEO folks, outsourced people, etc, they will all brag how they took a good route to overcome the changes while they mostly had no clue about it.
P.S.
It can easily be that all the "crap" being laid out while not on the topic is simply because most of us really have no clue about this, but have a need to talk - because, something is going on...
Privacy indeed seems entwined with this thread's topic; major ramifications.
Google a very different company to the start up by a couple of guys with an idea to develop (links as votes! Yay!).
The bean counters have taken over the asylum?
Up to Bing, maybe others, to see if can market by telling people they can search for new stuff, find fresh sites that are really, err, cuil...
New idea and more idea guys sorely needed!
...NSA...
...Bilderberg...
HOW DO YOU THINK THESE THINGS HAPPEN?
Careful... Who wants to follow Alice down the rabbit hole? ;)
(Wasn't that story a metaphor for something?)
Following that path, leads to all kinds of TRUTH, that can be hard to swallow.
For those who want the red pill and simply want to go back to sleep?
As stated repeatedly in this thread,
Start promoting BING!
With a concerted effort, in 6 months, the red pillers might only be slightly worried about their short-lived MONEY AND STATS sent from "Resistance is futile" Gorg.
BING's still only a TEMPORARY MEASURE.
But it might give the "blue pill" people just enough time to work on a different solution.
Ronin .what happens whan there is more than one user on a machine and your teenage kid clicks I accept so that they can watch their mates latest upload to you tube ..and the kid forgets to tell you ..you're in ..for that session ..and the next ..and the next ..etc until you buy another machine ..unless you remove the cookies ..
Yes. But stopping Google tracking you all over the web (nigh impossible) is not the same issue as choosing search results based on local semantic analysis rather than search results based on semantic analysis in the context of tracked historical preferences.
I'm just appealing to Google that that choice needs to be made publicly available to searchers. Because if you have any breadth of interest then, all too often, results based on historical searches on the same machine (by you or someone else) end up being not at all what you want. And this is frustrating.
I did it a month ago. If every member of WebmasterWorld who disagrees with where G is headed did the same, we might start getting some traction. Let's organize...Feb 1 is "out of google" day. Upload your new robots.txt and keep it there.
I know this won't happen. There's too much greed and selfishness out there...everyone thinking "great, 500 sites leave G and that's more greenbacks for me!"
that's why we're in this mess and unlikely to get out of it anytime soon. We DID build G and united, we could bring it to its knees in a week!
If anyone's concern is privacy itself - of search data, or even the bigger issue of privacy altogether - then they need to look beyond Google alone. A switch to Bing or whoever would not even be a long-term solution. At best it's a gesture, and a gesture towards a company that is not a protector of individual privacy today. When someone puts together a distributed search engine with great transparency and also great results, I'll be right there. But oh, the resources that will take!
Privacy in the age of massive data mining is a very tough nut to crack. I agree that it needs to be addressed for the sake all of humanity, but the challenge goes way beyond any particular search engine or even all search engines.
Privacy compromises are embedded today in almost all forms of mass marketing and beyond. When I was in the mail order catalog business in the 1980s I got my first whiff of powerful "database overlays", and it terrified me then. So I'm heartened that more people are seeing that it IS an issue. Up to now, the privacy versus security trade off (or the privacy versus easiness/comfort trade off) were barely on the public radar.
The privacy issue that I see isn't just about any specific data. It's about the aggregate of many data points, which can then give a distorted picture of what's really going on with any individual.
I'm not overly concerned about the new personalized results - even though I did call this move "very wrong-headed". I stopped giving clients regular SE ranking reports quite a few years ago and focused on traffic and conversions. That approach still seems solid for this challenge, too.
If you want to talk about privacy BEYOND GOOGLE, let's DO IT.
Please set up a thread or forum where we can DISCUSS THOSE ISSUES freely.
I've got years of real life info and scars in the battlefield to address about that.
But it seems somehow FALSE to NOT want to talk about GOOGLE'S PRIVACY CONCERNS in a thread labeled
"SEO and Privacy forever changed"(the original title), don't you think?
pull your sites out of google
Sounds right - hypothetically.
There's too much greed and selfishness out there...
Some call this bread (simple as that), but I agree with you about how easy people turn their eyes into dollar signs.
I hear you... if you don't like it, why help it?
I'll make quick a parallel to what's happening in AdWords - same thing. A lot of commenting like here, not much of understanding what is really going on and what the end result is to be (if there is end), people feeling about stopping everything, but...
...they need bread (golden or not), and they make it primarily through Google.
The mass, being coordinated or not, is what makes Google big.
Your will has to be stronger than steel or diamond in order to do something like this - if your site(s) really make money you need to feed your family.
Tough one, for sure.
And by the way, what do I think of a man who publicly says: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." (Source: Gawker.com [gawker.com]) This is VERY VERY concerning.
If anyone's concern is privacy itself - of search data, or even the bigger issue of privacy altogether - then they need to look beyond Google alone. A switch to Bing or whoever would not even be a long-term solution. At best it's a gesture, and a gesture towards a company that is not a protector of individual privacy today. When someone puts together a distributed search engine with great transparency and also great results, I'll be right there. But oh, the resources that will take!
I think you're on to something. How must a new, liberated search engine look like?
1) Must be open-source
2) Must be distributed, so that no single entity can corrupt/manipulate the entire thing; also helps with the quick buildup of resources
3) Maybe it should be run out of the EU in order to avoid the likes of the U.S. Patriot act?
4) The main system (frontend) should not store individual queries at all, and the organization running the front-end should not even record log-files. (If that is even legally possible where the frontend is run.) - Alternative: even the front-end is served from the distributed computers serving also the search result.
"It's really very simple" - Google's PR dept will surely say. "Users wishing to opt out of our default DNS service simply need to write down the IP addresses of their favorite sites and type them in as they are surfing the web - in private!".
P.S. And guess what happens when your site violates some mysterious unwritten rule or vague policy? Ouch! DNS de-listing is going to hurt even more than being thrown out of the Google index. Welcome to the real world, Neo!
How must a new, liberated search engine look like?1) Must be open-source
2) Must be distributed, ...
Weren't there already attempts at building a distributed open search engine with volunteers doing the crawling - like a few years ago? I seem to remember running some SETI-like spidering app on my computer for a while... Did it go anywhere? I don't remember hearing anything about it.
I believe one type of skepticism about the prospects of a "liberated" alternative has to do with the fact that serving public at large is very expensive. Only a few well-capitalized companies can afford that. But if there's somebody who can create a good indexing algorithm and the only hurdle is delivering the results, one can theorize that all they'd need to do is announce they want to sell shares to anyone. Like, webmasters unhappy about... well, the only choice right now.
Promoting an alternative should be easy if 50% of webmasters put a search box "search the web with XYZ" - just like we did years ago for a certain California-based public company.
Sadly, I think you are right. Who would actually fund such a project? Do there need to be funds at all? Developers do coding for the good cause all the time. Who writes Firefox? Who Thunderbird? Who Linux?
Now, with Internet search being monoplized by a single company that -for the first time now- implements products on top of the collected data, I think the Opensource movement should gather and build an Opensource competitor. I can't do it alone. A team of talented Opensource programmers could do.
What is this doing to YOUR SITE's stats?
I doubt we'll see anything meaningful in webstats for at least two months, probably longer.
I also think it will take a while before trends show up in the stats. However, I have noticed a slight increase in return visits and a slight decrease of new visitors from Google for the Dec 4 - Dec 7 period compared to the same period before.
Whether that's anything to do with the change or just fluctuations, I have no idea.
Considering the site only gets 34% new visitors on average and those new visitors account for 76% of the sites revenue, I would rather see new visitor numbers increase.. but anyways. To early to tell
Will keep and eye on it over the coming months.
Cheers
James
[edited by: tattoos at 8:03 am (utc) on Dec. 8, 2009]
Sadly, I think you are right. Who would actually fund such a project?
@ zett
Actually, I was saying, funding would be realistically possible - if somebody serious, with a little money - like EFF - was spearheading the effort. You'd set up a non-profit and invite everybody to donate money.
Or - another, riskier approach - one sets up a for-profit company and sells shares directly to webmasters. That is, people being spidered are also shareholders - at least some of them. Feel free to call it Utopian.
..Utopian
Utopian is just as easy to set up, as any other alternative.
It just needs the single-minded focus of a few dedicated individuals.
Keep up the good ideas.
Major Change is just around the corner!
If enough people did this I think that it would cause them real problems.
If they don't respond properly we could complain to the Information Commissioner and they would take enforcement action.
If we make enough noise this will hit the mainstream media and it will start to hurt the Google brand.
Cheers
Sid
